Earth Notes: UK Wet Heating Retrofit PhD Research

Updated 2024-12-10 16:23 GMT.
By Damon Hart-Davis ORCID logo.
A continuing summary of Damon's research into optimising UK domestic wet heating system retrofit. #PhD #heating #research
DORM1 wall scene

Overview

A summary, with periodic updates, of my research and reading (and maybe some notes from time to time) and relevant publications for a PhD at the University of Surrey Centre for Environment and Sustainability (CES). Having spent a decade thinking about home heating I want to continue to fight climate change by ensuring domestic space-heating retrofits. In particular, making upgrades of existing wet-heating systems with radiators from gas to heat-pump work as well as possible!

Reading To Do

A portion of my reading list: [norman2024echolocation] [ji2019calibration] [dongellini2019cycling] [oikonomou2022insitu] [govUK2023noise] [EU2024heatpump] [zhou2024horizontal] [heschong1979architecture] [cretu2022scale] [donkin2024health] [watson2021halfhourly] [bakker2024demand] [johnston1988transform] [ziemer2018psychoacoustical] [ISO2005std7730] [ASHRAE2023std55] [BSI2023PAS2035] [wade2016explain] [toleikyte2023deployment] [menegazzo2022technology] [neubert2022multifamily] [jones2021podcast] [gray2020podcast] [rime2022podcast] [xu2023integrated] [LCP2023installer] [ESC2022EoH] [BEIS2021EUFS] [britton2021exploring] [hemsley2018cleaning] [hhic2021heating] [hulme2013EUFS] [luo2022controlling] [piddington2020housing] [rosenow2023clean] [taylor2022renewable] [DCLG2015EHS] [EHSdataset] [ONShousing] [LAHSdataset] [bowers2022efficiency] [bouckaert2021net] [druckman2011missing] [BEIS2022building] [miller2020scaling] [wickham2014tidy] [bastian2022passive] [ONS2021census] [ONS2021heated] [johnston2020passive] [feist2020passive] [UKDS] [LGA2022decarbonise] [neumaier2023refrigerant] [cholewa2017thermostatic] [sorensen2023excess] [BEUC2022green] [santini2023clean] [altermatt2023replacing] [zong2024umwelt] [reinertsen2009principles]

IN PROGRESS

Reading Done

This will likely include anything that I read or skim in a formal paper that is energy/climate related, and sometimes a bit wider, eg how-to-PhD, how to analyse data, etc...

This includes non-text resources, eg podcasts, and some conferences, Webinars, etc.

Timeline

2023: UK Homes Needing Wet Heating Retrofits: Status (2023)

Topics In Scope

  1. What is the current UK/England/Kingston housing stock archetype mix?
  2. What of the current stock is:
    • still expected to be in use in 2050 (eg not demolished or vacant)
    • hydronic heat with gas (or other fossil) boiler
    • non-hydronic heat with gas (or other fossil) source, eg forced air
    • needing retrofit to heat-pump, ie currently on fossil-fuel (central) heat
    • "hard to treat" (including listed buildings) and why?
  3. What fraction of stock that should be retrofitted actually must be in order to meet (eg) 2050 Net Zero targets?
  4. Should other wet heating systems not gas-fired (eg oil) be considered?

Topics Not In Scope

Relevant points and controversies not covered here, but that are also important:

Tools and Meta

There are some (meta) tools that I am gathering, such as how to get the most from my PhD [bard2018most], a template for a good abstract [gilardi2021abstracts], and a notion of 'tidy' (normalised) data [wickham2014tidy]. Maybe also some things not to do [demenard2020wrong]. And some scientific style to aim for [fortier-dubois2022style]?

Also, I should learn how to do key word searches in the abstracting sites, such as Web of Science and Science Direct.

Also, a research plan would probably be a good idea — my colleague Uche :

2024-01-31: Notes from Surrey Open Research Culture Event

Do not forget to study and cite valid views/studies contrary to mine...

Inform in Methods, persuade in Discussion...

Would preregistration help keep my work on the straight and narrow?

References

(Count: 322)

~5479 words.